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Figure 1. Distribution of Townsend's Warbler.

Adult male Townsend's Warbler, breeding plumage

Editor's Note: Phylogenetic analyses of sequences of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA indicate that all species formerly placed in Dendroica, one species formerly placed in Wilsonia (citrina), and two species formerly placed inParula (americana and pitiayumi) form a clade with the single species traditionally placed inSetophaga (ruticilla). The generic nameSetophagahas priority for this clade. See the 52nd Supplement to the AOU Checklist of North American Birdsfor details. Future revisions of this account will reflect these changes.

A colorful, distinctive wood-warbler that breeds among the treetops of mature fir forests in the Pacific Northwest, Townsend's Warbler also nests in montane spruce-fir (Picea-Abies) forests in Idaho, Montana, and northwest Wyoming, and in boreal forests in Alaska and the Yukon Territory. In September, it begins its southward migration to California and the highlands of Mexico and Central America, where it is the most common of all species (including residents) in some locales.

Townsend's Warbler was among the many species first collected by John Kirk Townsend during his expedition with Thomas Nuttall through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast in 1834. The description of Townsend's Warbler first appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1837 written by Nuttall under Townsend's name (
Mearns, B. C. and R. F. Mearns. (1992a). Audubon to Xántus: The lives of those commemorated in North American bird names. New York: Academic Press.
Mearns and Mearns 1992a). The first specimen seems to have been procured in the forests along the Columbia River near Fort Vancouver, Washington.

On its breeding grounds, this warbler consumes insects gleaned from foliage, but on its Mexican and Central American wintering grounds it often exploits honeydew excreted by sap-sucking insects. Townsend's Warbler is most closely related to the Hermit Warbler (D. occidentalis) within a group also including Black-throated Green (Dendroica virens) and Golden-cheeked (D. chrysoparia) warblers. The ranges of the Hermit and Townsend's warblers overlap in Washington and Oregon, where they frequently hybridize (
Pearson, S. F. (1997). "Hermit Warbler (Dendroica occidentalis)." In The birds of North America, no. 303., edited by A. Poole and F. Gill. Washington, D.C: Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, PA, and Am. Ornithol. Union.
Pearson 1997).